The Principles of Human Knowledge

George Berkeley

Copyright 20102015 All rights reserved. Jonathan Bennett

[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small dots enclose material that has been added, but can be read as
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First launched: July 2004

Last amended: November 2007

Contents
Introduction

Sections 150

11

Sections 5199

25

Sections 100156

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George Berkeley

150

Sections 150
3. Everyone will agree that our thoughts, emotions, and
ideas of the imagination exist only in the mind. It seems
to me equally obvious that the various sensations or ideas
that are imprinted on our senses cannot exist except in a
mind that perceives themno matter how they are blended
or combined together (that is, no matter what objects they
constitute). You can know this intuitively [= you can see this as
immediately self-evident] by attending to what is meant by the
term exist when it is applied to perceptible things. The table
that I am writing on exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I
were out of my study I would still say that it existed, meaning
that if I were in my study I would perceive it, or that some
other spirit actually does perceive it. Similarly,
there was an odouri.e. it was smelled;
there was a soundit was heard;
there was a colour or shapeit was seen or felt.
This is all that I can understand by such expressions as
these. There are those who speak of things that unlike spirits do not think and unlike ideas exist whether or not they
are perceived; but that seems to be perfectly unintelligible.
For unthinking things, to exist is to be perceived; so they
couldnt possibly exist out of the minds or thinking things
that perceive them.

1. Anyone who surveys the objects of human knowledge will

easily see that they are all ideas that are either actually
imprinted on the senses or perceived by attending to ones
own emotions and mental activities or formed out of ideas of
the first two types, with the help of memory and imagination,
by compounding or dividing or simply reproducing ideas of
those other two kinds. By sight I have the ideas of light
and colours with their different degrees and variations. By
touch I perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and
resistance, and so on; and each of these also admits of
differences of quantity or degree. Smelling supplies me with
odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds
to the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And
when a number of these are observed to accompany each
other, they come to be marked by one name and thus to be
thought of as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour,
taste, smell, shape and consistency having been observed to
go together, they are taken to be one distinct thing, called an
apple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree,
a book, and similar perceptible things; and these can arouse
the emotions of love, hate, joy, grief, and so on, depending
on whether they please or displease us.
2. As well as all that endless variety of ideas, or objects of
knowledge, there is also something that knows or perceives
them, and acts on them in various ways such as willing,
imagining, and remembering. This perceiving, active entity is
what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. These words dont
refer to any one of my ideas, but rather to something entirely
distinct from them, something in which they exist, or by
which they are perceived. Those two are equivalent, because
the existence of an idea consists in its being perceived.

4. It is indeed widely believed that all perceptible objects

houses, mountains, rivers, and so onreally exist independently of being perceived by the understanding. But however
widely and confidently this belief may be held, anyone who
has the courage to challenge it willif Im not mistakensee
that it involves an obvious contradiction. For what are
houses, mountains, rivers etc. but things we perceive by
sense? And what do we perceive besides our own ideas or
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George Berkeley

sensations? And isnt it plainly contradictory that these,

either singly or in combination, should exist unperceived?

150

perceived by (i.e. dont exist in the mind of) myself or

any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all or else exist in the mind of some eternal
spirit; because it makes no senseand involves all
the absurdity of abstractionto attribute to any such
thing an existence independent of a spirit.
To be convinced of this, you need only to reflect and try to
separate in your own thoughts the existence of a perceptible
thing from its being perceivedyoull find that you cant.

5. If we thoroughly examine this belief in things existing independently of the mind it will, perhaps, be found to depend
basically on the doctrine of abstract ideas. For can there
be a more delicate and precise strain of abstraction than to
distinguish the existence of perceptible things from their
being perceived, so as to conceive them existing unperceived?
Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and shapes, in a
word the things we see and feelwhat are they but so many
sensations, notions, ideas, or sense impressions? And can
any of these be separated, even in thought, from perception?
Speaking for myself, I would find it no easier to do that
than to divide a thing from itself! I dont deny that I can
abstract (if indeed this is properly called abstraction) by
conceiving separately objects that can exist separately, even
if I have never experienced them apart from one another. I
can for example imagine a human torso without the limbs,
or conceive the smell of a rose without thinking of the rose
itself. But my power of conceiving or imagining goes no
further than that: it doesnt extend beyond the limits of
what can actually exist or be perceived. Therefore, because
I cant possibly see or feel a thing without having an actual
sensation of it, I also cant possibly conceive of a perceptible
thing distinct from the sensation or perception of it.

7. From what I have said it follows that the only substances

are spiritsthings that perceive. Another argument for the
same conclusion is the following down to the end of the
section. The perceptible qualities are colour, shape, motion,
smell, taste and so on, and these are ideas perceived by
sense. Now it is plainly self-contradictory to suppose that
an idea might exist in an unperceiving thing, for to have an
idea is just the same as to perceive: so whatever has colour,
shape and so on must perceive these qualities; from which
it clearly follows that there can be no unthinking substance
or substratum of those ideas.
8. But, you say, though the ideas dont exist outside the
mind, still there may be things like them of which they are
copies or resemblances, and these things may exist outside
the mind in an unthinking substance. I answer that the only
thing an idea can resemble is another idea; a colour or shape
cant be like anything but another colour or shape. Attend a
little to your own thoughts and you will find that you cant
conceive of any likeness except between your ideas. Also:
tell me about those supposed originals or external things
of which our ideas are the pictures or representationsare
they perceivable or not? If they are, then they are ideas, and
I have won the argument; but if you say they are not, I appeal
to anyone whether it makes sense to assert that a colour

6. Some truths are so close to the mind, and so obvious,

that as soon as you open your eyes you will see them. Here
is an important truth of that kind:
All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth,
in a word all those bodies that compose the mighty
structure of the world, have no existence outside a
mind; for them to exist is for them to be perceived or
known; consequently so long as they arent actually
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George Berkeley

is like something that is invisible; that hard or soft is like

something intangible; and similarly for the other qualities.

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abstraction that enables you to conceive of a bodys being

extended and moving without having any other perceptible
qualities. Speaking for myself, I see quite clearly that I cant
form an idea of an extended, moving body unless I also give
it some colour or other perceptible quality which is admitted
by the philosophers I have been discussing to exist only in
the mind. In short, extension, shape and motion, abstracted
from all other qualities, are inconceivable. It follows that
these primary qualities must be where the secondary ones
arenamely in the mind and nowhere else.

9. Some philosophers distinguish primary qualities from

secondary qualities: they use the former term to stand for
extension, shape, motion, rest, solidity and number; by the
latter term they denote all other perceptible qualities, such
as colours, sounds, tastes, and so on. Our ideas of secondary
qualities dont resemble anything existing outside the mind
or unperceived, they admit; but they insist that our ideas
of primary qualities are patterns or images of things that
exist outside the mind in an unthinking substance that they
call matter. By matter, therefore, we are to understand
an inert, senseless substance in which extension, shape
and motion actually exist. But I have already shown that
extension, shape, and motion are quite clearly nothing but
ideas existing in the mind, and that an idea cant be like
anything but another idea, and that consequently neither
they nor things from which they are copied can exist in an
unperceiving substance. So the very notion of so-called matter, or corporeal substance, clearly involves a contradiction.

11. Heres a further point about extension and motion.

Large and small, and fast and slow, are generally agreed
to exist only in the mind. That is because they are entirely
relative: whether something is large or small, and whether
it moves quickly or slowly, depends on the condition or
location of the sense-organs of the perceiver. [See the end of
14 for a little light on the quick/slow part of this point.] So if there
is extension outside the mind, it must be neither large nor
small, and extra-mental motion must be neither fast nor
slow. I conclude that there is no such extension or motion.
(If you reply They do exist; they are extension in general
and motion in general, that will be further evidence of how
greatly the doctrine about extended, movable substances
existing outside the mind depends on that strange theory
of abstract ideas.). . . . So unthinking substances cant be
extended; and that implies that they cant be solid either,
because it makes no sense to suppose that something is
solid but not extended.

10. Those who assert that shape, motion and the other
primary qualities exist outside the mind in unthinking substances say in the same breath that colours, sounds, heat,
cold, and other secondary qualities do not. These, they tell
us, are sensations that exist in the mind alone, and depend
on the different size, texture, and motion of the minute
particles of matter. They offer this as an undoubted truth
that they can prove conclusively. Now if it is certain that
(1) primary qualities are inseparably united with secondary
ones, and cant be abstracted from them even in thought,
it clearly follows that (2) primary qualities exist only in the
mind, just as the secondary ones do. I now defend (1). Look
in on yourself, and see whether you can perform a mental

12. Even if we grant that the other primary qualities exist

outside the mind, it must be conceded that number is
entirely created by the mind. This will be obvious to anyone
who notices that the same thing can be assigned different
numbers depending on how the mind views it. Thus, the
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George Berkeley

same distance is one or three or thirty-six, depending on

whether the mind considers it in terms of yards, feet or
inches. Number is so obviously relative and dependent on
mens understanding that I find it surprising that anyone
should ever have credited it with an absolute existence
outside the mind. We say one book, one page, one line; all
these are equally unitsthat is, each is one somethingyet
the book contains many pages and the page contains many
lines. In each case, obviously, what we are saying there is
one of is a particular combination of ideas arbitrarily put
together by the mind, for example, the arbitrary combination
of ideas that we choose to call a book.

150

they argue that sweetness isnt really in the thing that is

described as sweet, because sweetness can be changed into
bitterness without there being any alteration in the thing
itselfbecause the persons palate has been affected by a
fever or some other harm. Is it not equally reasonable to
argue that motion isnt outside the mind because a thing will
appear to move more or less quicklywithout any change
in the thing itselfdepending on whether the succession of
ideas in the observers mind is slow or fast?

13. Some philosophers, I realize, hold that unity is a simple

or uncompounded idea that accompanies every other idea
into the mind. I dont find that I have any such idea
corresponding to the word unity. I could hardly overlook it
if it were there in my mind: it ought to be the most familiar
to me of all my ideas, since it is said to accompany all my
other ideas and to be perceived by all the ways of sensation
and reflection. In short, it is an abstract idea!

15. In short, the arguments that are thought to prove that

colours and tastes exist only in the mind have as much force
to prove the same thing of extension, shape and motion.
Really, though, these arguments dont prove that there is
no extension or colour in an outward object, but only that
our senses dont tell us what an objects true extension or
colour is. My own previous arguments do better: they
clearly show it to be impossible that any colour or extension
or other perceptible quality should exist in an unthinking
thing outside the mind, or indeed that there should be any
such thing as an object outside the mind.

14. Here is a further point. Some modern philosophers

argue that certain perceptible qualities have no existence in
matter or outside the mind; their arguments can be used to
prove the same thing of all perceptible qualities whatsoever.
They point out for instance that a body that appears cold to
one hand seems warm to the other, from which they infer
that heat and cold are only states of the mind and dont
resemble anything in the corporeal substances that cause
them. If that argument is good, then why cant we re-apply it
to prove that shape and extension dont resemble any fixed
and determinate qualities existing in matter, because they
appear differently to the same eye in different positions,
or eyes in different states in the same position? Again,

16. But let us examine the usual opinion a little further. It is

said that extension is a quality of matter, and that matter is
the substratum that supports it. Please explain to me what
is meant by matters supporting extension. You reply: I
have no idea of matter; so I cant explain it. I answer: Even if
you have no positive meaning for matterthat is, have no
idea of what matter is like in itselfyou must at least have
a relative idea of it, so that you know how matter relates to
qualities, and what it means to say that it supports them.
If you dont even know that, you have no meaning at all in
what you are saying. Explain support, then! Obviously it
cannot be meant here in its usual or literal sense, as when
we say that pillars support a building: in what sense, then,
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150

what reasons can lead us from the ideas that we perceive

to a belief in the existence of bodies outside the mind? The
supporters of matter themselves dont claim that there is
any necessary connection between material things and our
ideas. We could have all the ideas that we now have without
there being any bodies existing outside us that resemble
them; everyone admits this, and what happens in dreams,
hallucinations and so on puts it beyond dispute. Evidently,
then, we arent compelled to suppose that there are external
bodies as causes of our ideas. Those ideas are sometimes,
so they could be always, produced without help from bodies
yet falling into the patterns that they do in fact exhibit.

are we to understand it?

17. When we attend to what the most carefully precise
philosophers say they mean by material substance, we find
them admitting that the only meaning they can give to those
sounds is the idea of being in general, together with the
relative notion of its supporting qualities. The general idea of
being seems to me the most abstract and incomprehensible
of all. As for its supporting qualities: since this cannot
be understood in the ordinary sense of those words (as
I have just pointed out), it must be taken in some other
sense; but we arent told what that other sense is. I am
sure, therefore, that there is no clear meaning in either
of the two parts or strands that are supposed to make up
the meaning of the words material substance. Anyway,
why should we trouble ourselves any further in discussing
this material substratum or support of shape and motion
and other perceptible qualities? Whatever we make of its
detailsthe notions of being in general, and of supportit
is clearly being said that shape and motion and the rest
exist outside the mind. Isnt this a direct contradiction, and
altogether inconceivable?

19. Even though external bodies arent absolutely needed

to explain our sensations, you might think, the course of
our experience is easier to explain on the supposition of
external bodies than it is without that supposition. So it is at
least probable there are bodies that cause our minds to have
ideas of them. But this is not tenable either. The materialists
admit that they cannot understand how body can act upon
spirit, or how it is possible for a body to imprint any idea
in a mind; and that is tantamount to admitting that they
dont know how our ideas are produced. So the production
of ideas or sensations in our minds cant be a reason for
supposing the existence of matter or corporeal substances,
because it admittedly remains a mystery with or without that
supposition. So even if it were possible for bodies to exist
outside the mind, the belief that they actually do so must be
a very shaky one; since it involves supposing, without any
reason at all, that God has created countless things that are
entirely useless and serve no purpose.

18. Suppose it were possible for solid, figured, movable

substances to exist outside the mind, corresponding to the
ideas we have of bodieshow could we possibly know that
there are any such things? We must know it either by sense
or by reason. Our senses give us knowledge only of our
sensationsideasthings that are immediately perceived by
sensecall them what you will! They dont inform us that
outside the mind (that is, unperceived) there exist things
that resemble the item s that are perceived. The materialists
themselves admit this. So if we are to have any knowledge
of external things, it must be by reason, inferring their
existence from what is immediately perceived by sense. But

20. In short, if there were external bodies, we couldnt

possibly come to know this; and if there werent, we might
have the very same reasons to think there were that we
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George Berkeley

have now. No-one can deny the following to be possible: A

thinking being might, without the help of external bodies, be
affected with the same series of sensations or ideas that you
have, imprinted in the same order and with similar vividness
in his mind. If that happened, wouldnt that thinking being
have all the reason to believe There are corporeal substances
that are represented by my ideas and cause them in my mind
that you can possibly have for believing the same thing? Of
course he would; and that consideration is enough, all on its
own, to make any reasonable person suspect the strength of
whatever arguments he may think he has for the existence
of bodies outside the mind.

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outside the mind, or unperceived. Can you do it? This simple

thought-experiment may make you see that what you have
been defending is a downright contradiction. I am willing
to stake my whole position on this: if you can so much as
conceive it possible for one extended movable substanceor
in general for any one idea or anything like an ideato exist
otherwise than in a mind perceiving it, I shall cheerfully
give up my opposition to matter; and as for all that great
apparatus of external bodies that you argue for, I shall admit
its existence, even though you cannot either give me any
reason why you believe it exists, or assign any use to it when
it is supposed to exist. I repeat: the bare possibility of your
being right will count as an argument that you are right.

21. If, even after what has been said, more arguments were
needed against the existence of matter, I could cite many
errors and difficulties (not to mention impieties) that have
sprung from that doctrine. It has led to countless controversies and disputes in philosophy, and many even more
important ones in religion. But I shant go into the details of
them here, because I think arguments about materialisms
bad consequences are unnecessary for confirming what
has, I think, been well enough proved a priori regarding
its intrinsic defects, and the lack of good reasons to support
it. [The word materialism doesnt occur in the Principles. It is used

23. But, you say, surely there is nothing easier than to

imagine trees in a park, for instance, or books on a shelf, with
nobody there to perceive them. I reply that this is indeed
easy to imagine; but let us look into what happens when
you imagine it. You form in your mind certain ideas that
you call books and trees, and at the same time you omit to
form the idea of anyone who might perceive them. But while
you are doing this, you perceive or think of them! So your
thought- experiment misses the point; it shows only that you
have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your mind;
but it doesnt show that you can conceive it possible for the
objects of your thought to exist outside the mind. To show
that, you would have to conceive them existing unconceived
or unthought-of, which is an obvious contradiction. However
hard we try to conceive the existence of external bodies, all
we achieve is to contemplate our own ideas. The mind is
misled into thinking that it can and does conceive bodies
existing outside the mind or unthought-of because it pays
no attention to itself, and so doesnt notice that it contains
or thinks of the things that it conceives. Think about it a
little and you will see that what I am saying is plainly true;

in this version, in editorial notes and interventions, with the meaning

that Berkeley gives it in other works, naming the doctrine that there is
such a thing as mind-independent matter, not the stronger doctrine that

there is nothing but matter.]

22. I am afraid I have given you cause to think me needlessly

long-winded in handling this subject. For what is the point
of hammering away at something that can be proved in a
line or two, convincing anyone who is capable of the least
reflection? Look into your own thoughts, and try to conceive
it possible for a sound or shape or motion or colour to exist
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George Berkeley

there is really no need for any of the other disproofs of the

existence of material substance.

150

appear, others are changed or totally disappear. These ideas

must have a causesomething they depend on, something
that produces and changes them. It is clear from 25 that
this cause cannot be any quality or idea or combination of
ideas, because that section shows that ideas are inactive, i.e.
have no causal powers; and thus qualities have no powers
either, because qualities are ideas. So the cause must
be a substance, because reality consists of nothing but
substances and their qualities. It cannot be a corporeal or
material substance, because I have shown that there is no
such thing. We must therefore conclude that the cause of
ideas is an incorporeal active substancea spirit.

24. It takes very little enquiry into our own thoughts to know
for sure whether we can understand what is meant by the
absolute existence of perceptible objects outside the mind.
To me it is clear that those words mark out either a direct
contradiction or else nothing at all. To convince you of this,
I know no easier or fairer way than to urge you to attend
calmly to your own thoughts: if that attention reveals to you
the emptiness or inconsistency of those words, that is surely
all you need to be convinced. So that is what I insist on:
the phrase the absolute existence of unthinking things has
either no meaning or a self-contradictory one. This is what I
repeat and teach, and urge you to think about carefully.

27. A spirit is an active being. It is simple, in the sense that

it doesnt have parts. When thought of as something that
perceives ideas, it is called the understanding, and when
thought of as producing ideas or doing things with them, it
is called the will. But understanding and will are different
powers that a spirit has; they arent parts of it. It follows
that no-one can form an idea of a soul or spirit. We have seen
in 25 that all ideas are passive and inert, and therefore no
idea can represent an active thing, which is what a spirit
is, because no idea can resemble an active thing. If you
think about it a little, youll see clearly that it is absolutely
impossible to have an idea that is like an active cause of the
change of ideas. The nature of spirit (i.e. that which acts)
is such that it cannot itself be perceived; all we can do is to
perceive the effects it produces. To perceive a spirit would
be to have an idea of it, that is, an idea that resembles it;
and I have shown that no idea can resemble a spirit because
ideas are passive and spirits active. If you think I may be
wrong about this, you should look in on yourself and try to
form the idea of a power or of an active being, that is, a
thing that has power. To do this, you need to have ideas of
two principal powers called will and understanding, these

25. All our ideassensations, things we perceive, call them

what you willare visibly inactive; there is no power or
agency in them. One idea or object of thought, therefore,
cannot produce or affect another. To be convinced of this
we need only to attend to our ideas. They are wholly
contained within the mind, so whatever is in them must
be perceived. Now, if you attend to your ideas, whether
of sense or reflection, you will not perceive any power or
activity in them; so there is no power or activity in them.
Think about it a little and youll realize that passiveness and
inertness are of the essence of an idea, so that an idea cant
do anything or be the cause (strictly speaking) of anything;
nor can it resemble anything that is active, as is evident
from 8. From this it clearly follows that extension, shape
and motion cant be the cause of our sensations. So it must
be false to say that our sensations result from powers that
things have because of the arrangement, number, motion,
and size of the corpuscles in them.
26. We perceive a continual stream of ideas: new ones
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George Berkeley

ideas being distinct from each other and from a third idea
of substance or being in general, which is called soul or
spirit; and you must also have a relative notion of spirits
supporting or being the subject of those two powers. Some
people say that they have all that; but it seems to me that
the words will and spirit dont stand for distinct ideas, or
indeed for any idea at all, but for something very different
from ideas. Because this something is an agent, it cannot
resemble or be represented by any idea whatsoever. Though
it must be admitted that we have some notion of soul, spirit,
and operations of the mind such as willing, loving and hating,
in that we understand the meanings of those words.

150

minds at will are often random and jumbled, but the ideas
of sense arent like that: they come in a regular series, and
are inter-related in admirable ways that show us the wisdom
and benevolence of the series author. The phrase the
laws of nature names the set rules or established methods
whereby the mind we depend onthat is, Godarouses in
us the ideas of sense. We learn what they are by experience,
which teaches us that such and such ideas are ordinarily
accompanied or followed by such and such others.
31. This gives us a sort of foresight that enables us to
regulate our actions for the benefit of life. Without this we
would always be at a loss: we couldnt know how to do
anything to bring ourselves pleasure or spare ourselves pain.
That food nourishes, sleep refreshes, and fire warms us; that
to sow in the spring is the way to get a harvest in the fall, and
in general that such and such means are the way to achieve
such and such endswe know all this not by discovering
any necessary connection between our ideas but only by
observing the settled laws of nature. Without them we would
be utterly uncertain and confused, and a grown man would
have no more idea than a new-born infant does of how to
manage himself in the affairs of life.

28. I find I can arouse ideas in my mind at will, and vary

and shift the mental scene whenever I want to. I need only
to will, and straight away this or that idea arises in my mind;
and by willing again I can obliterate it and bring on another.
It is because the mind makes and unmakes ideas in this way
that it can properly be called active. It certainly is active;
we know this from experience. But anyone who talks of
unthinking agents or of arousing ideas without the use of
volition is merely letting himself be led astray by words.
29. Whatever power I may have over my own thoughts,
however, I find that the ideas I get through my senses dont
depend on my will in the same way. When in broad daylight
I open my eyes, it isnt in my power to choose whether or
not I shall see anything, or to choose what particular objects
I shall see; and the same holds for hearing and the other
senses. My will is not responsible for the ideas that come to
me through any of my senses. So there must be some other
willsome other spiritthat produces them.

32. This consistent, uniform working obviously displays

the goodness and wisdom of God, the governing spirit
whose will constitutes the laws of nature. And yet, far from
leading our thoughts towards him, it sends them away from
him in a wandering search for second causesthat is, for
causes that come between God and the effects we want to
explain. For when we perceive that certain ideas of sense
are constantly followed by other ideas, and we know that
this isnt our doing, we immediately attribute power and
agency to the ideas themselves, and make one the cause
of anotherthan which nothing can be more absurd and

30. The ideas of sense are stronger, livelier, and clearer

than those of the imagination; and they are also steady,
orderly and coherent. Ideas that people bring into their own
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George Berkeley

unintelligible. Thus, for example, having observed that when

we perceive by sight a certain round luminous figure, we at
the same time perceive by touch the idea or sensation called
heat, we infer that the sun causes heat. Similarly, when we
perceive that a collision of bodies is accompanied by sound,
we are inclined to think the latter an effect of the former.

150

nature is banished out of the world, and replaced by

a chimerical [= unreal or imaginary] system of ideas. All
things that exist do so only in the mind according
to you, that is, they are purely notional. Then
what becomes of the sun, moon, and stars? What
must we think of houses, rivers, mountains, trees,
stoneseven of our own bodies, for that matter? Are
all these mere illusions, creatures of the imagination?

33. The (1) ideas imprinted on the senses by the author of

nature are called real things; and those (2) that are caused
by the imagination, being less regular, vivid, and constant,
are more properly called ideas or images of things that they
copy and represent. But our (1) sensations, however vivid
and distinct they may be, are nevertheless ideas; that is,
they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as (2)
the ideas that mind itself makes. The (1) ideas of sense are
agreed to have more reality in themi.e. to be more strong,
orderly, and coherentthan ideas made by the mind; but
this doesnt show that they exist outside the mind. They are
also less dependent on the spirit or thinking substance that
perceives them, for they are caused by the will of another
and more powerful spirit, namely God; but still they are
ideas, and certainly no ideawhether faint or strongcan
exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it.

To all thisand any other objections of the same sortI

answer that the principles I have laid down dont deprive
us of any one thing in nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear,
or in any way conceive or understand remains as secure
as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a real world, and
the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full
force. This is evident from 2930 and 33, where I have shown
what is meant by real things in opposition to chimeras or
ideas made by us; but by that account real things and
chimeras both exist in the mind, and in that sense are alike
in being ideas.
35. I dont argue against the existence of any one thing
that we can take in, either by sense or reflection. I dont
in the least question that the things I see with my eyes
and touch with my hands do exist, really exist. The only
thing whose existence I deny is what philosophers call
matter or corporeal substance. And in denying this I do
no harm to the rest of mankindthat is, to people other
than philosophersbecause they will never miss it. The
atheist indeed will lose the rhetorical help he gets from an
empty name, matter, which he uses to support his impiety;
and the philosophers may find that they have lost a great
opportunity for word-spinning and disputation.

34. Before we move on, I have to spend some time in

answering objections that are likely to be made against the
principles I have laid down. I shall answer twelve of them,
ending in 72; and further objections will occupy 7384. My
answer to the first of the twelve will run to the end of 40. If
fast-thinking readers find me too long-winded about this, I
hope they will pardon me. My excuse is that people arent
all equally quick in getting a grasp on topics such as this,
and I want to be understood by everyone. First, then, this
will be objected:
By your principles everything real and substantial in
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150

36. If you think that this detracts from the existence or

reality of things, you are very far from understanding what
I have said in the plainest way I could think of. Here it is
again, in brief outline. There are spiritual substances, minds,
or human souls, which cause ideas in themselves through
acts of the will, doing this as they please; but these ideas are
faint, weak, and unsteady as compared with other ideas that
minds perceive by sense. The latter ideas, being impressed
on minds according to certain rules or laws of nature tell
us that they are the effects of a mind that is stronger and
wiser than human spirits. The latter are said to have more
reality in them than the former: by which is meant that they
are more forceful, orderly, and distinct, and that they arent
fictions of the mind that perceives them. In this sense, the
sun that I see by day is the real sun, and what I imagine by
night is the idea of the former. In the sense I am here giving
to reality, it is evident that every plant, star, rock, and in
general each part of the system of the world, is as much a
real thing by my principles as by any others. Whether you
mean by reality anything different from what I do, I beg you
to look into your own thoughts and see.

the word idea isnt used in ordinary talk to signify the

combinations of perceptible qualities that are called things;
and any expression that differs from the familiar use of
language is bound to seem weird and ridiculous. But this
doesnt concern the truth of the proposition, which in other
words merely says that we are fed and clothed with things
that we perceive immediately by our senses. The hardness
or softness, the colour, taste, warmth, shape and such like
qualities, which combine to constitute the various sorts of
food and clothing, have been shown to exist only in the mind
that perceives them; and this is all I mean by calling them
ideas; which word, if it was as ordinarily used as thing,
would sound no weirder or more ridiculous than thing does
in the statement that we eat and drink things and are
clothed with them. My concern isnt with the propriety of
words but with the truth of my doctrine. So if you will agree
with me that what we eat, drink, and clothe ourselves with
are immediate objects of sense that cannot exist unperceived
or outside the mind, I will readily agree with you that it
is more propermore in line with ordinary speechto call
them things rather than ideas.

37. You will want to object: At least it is true that you

take away all corporeal substances. I answer that if the
word substance is taken in the ordinary everyday sense
standing for a combination of perceptible qualities such
as extension, solidity, weight, etc.I cannot be accused
of taking substance away. But if substance is taken in
a philosophic sensestanding for the support of qualities
outside the mindthen indeed I agree that I take it away, if
one may be said to take away something that never had any
existence, not even in the imagination.

39. Why do I employ the word idea, rather than following

ordinary speech and calling them things? For two reasons:
first, because the term thing, unlike idea, is generally
supposed to stand for something existing outside the mind;
and secondly, because thing has a broader meaning than
idea, because it applies to spirits, or thinking things, as
well as to ideas. Since the objects of sense exist only in the
mind, and also are unthinking and inactive which spirits
are not, I choose to mark them by the word idea, which
implies those properties.

38. But, you say, it sounds weird to say that we eat and
drink ideas, and are clothed with them. So it does, because

40. You may want to say: Say what you like, I will still
believe my senses, and will never allow any arguments,
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George Berkeley

however plausible they may be, to prevail over the certainty

of my senses. Be it so, assert the obvious rightness of the
senses as strongly as you pleaseI shall do the same! What I
see, hear, and feel existsi.e. is perceived by meand I dont
doubt this any more than I doubt my own existence. But I
dont see how the testimony of the senses can be brought
as proof of the existence of anything that is not perceived
by sense. I dont want anyone to become a sceptic, and to
disbelieve his senses; on the contrary, I give the senses all
the emphasis and assurance imaginable; and there are no
principles more opposed to scepticism than those I have laid
down, as will be clearly shown later on.

150

think about how we perceive distance, and things placed at

a distance, by sight. For if we really do see external space,
and bodies actually existing in it at various distances from
us, that does seem to tell against my thesis that bodies
exist nowhere outside the mind. It was thinking about
this difficulty that led me to write my Essay towards a New
Theory of Vision, which was published recently. In that work
I show that distance or externality is not immediately of itself
perceived by sight, nor is it something we grasp or believe
in on the basis of lines and angles, or anything that has a
necessary connection with it. Rather, it is only suggested
to our thoughts by certain visible ideas and sensations that
go with visionideas which in their own nature are in no
way similar to or related to either distance or things at a
distance. By a connection taught us by experience they come
to signify and suggest distances and distant things to us, in
the same way that the words of a language suggest the ideas
they are made to stand for. There is nothing intrinsic to
the word red that makes it the right name for that colour;
we merely learn what it names through our experience of
general usage. Similarly, there is nothing intrinsic to my
present visual idea that makes it an idea of a tree in the
middle distance; but ideas like it have been connected with
middle-distance things in my experience. Thus, a man who
was born blind, and afterwards made to see, wouldnt at
first sight think the things he saw to be outside his mind
or at any distance from him because he wouldnt have had
any experience enabling him to make that connection. See
section 41 of the New Theory.

41. Secondly [of the twelve objections mentioned in 34], it will be

objected that there is a great difference between (for instance)
real fire and the idea of fire, between actually being burnt
and dreaming or imagining oneself to be burnt. The answer
to thisand to all the similar objections that may be brought
against my positionis evident from what I have already
said. At this point I shall add only this: if real fire is very
different from the idea of fire, so also is the real pain that
comes from it very different from the idea of that pain; but
nobody will maintain that real pain could possibly exist in
an unperceiving thing, or outside the mind, any more than
the idea of it can.
42. Thirdly, it will be objected that we see things actually
outside us, at a distance from us; and these things dont
exist in the mind, for it would be absurd to suppose that
things that are seen at the distance of several miles are as
near to us as our own thoughts. In answer to this I ask you
to considered the fact that in dreams we often perceive things
as existing at a great distance off, and yet those things are
acknowledged to exist only in the mind.

44. The ideas of sight and of touch constitute two species,

entirely distinct and different from one another. The former
are marks and forward-looking signs of the latter. (Even in
my New Theory I showedthough this wasnt its central
purposethat the items that are perceived only by sight

43. In order to clear up this matter more thoroughly, let us

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150

againas I did in 25 introto examine your own thoughts,

and not to allow yourself to be imposed on by words. If you
can conceive it to be possible for either your ideas or things
of which they are copies to exist without being perceived,
then I throw in my hand; but if you cant, you will admit that
it is unreasonable for you to stand up in defence of you know
not what, and claim to convict me of absurdity because I
dont assent to propositions that at bottom have no meaning
in them.

dont exist outside the mind and dont resemble external

things. Throughout that work I supposed that tangible
objectsones that we feel do exist outside the mind. I
didnt need that common error in order to establish the
position I was developing in the book; but I let it stand
because it was beside my purpose to examine and refute it
in a treatment of vision.) Thus, the strict truth of the matter
is this: when we see things at a distance from us, the ideas
of sight through which we do this dont suggest or mark
out to us things actually existing at a distance, but only
warn us about what ideas of touch will be imprinted in our
minds if we act in such and such ways for such and such
a length of time. On the basis of what I have already said
in the present work, and of 147 and other parts of the New
Theory, it is evident that visible ideas are the language in
which the governing spirit on whom we dependGodtells
us what tangible ideas he is about to imprint on us if we
bring about this or that movement of our own bodies. For a
fuller treatment of this point, I refer you to the New Theory
itself.

46. It would be as well to think about how far the commonly

accepted principles of philosophy are themselves guilty of
those alleged absurdities. It is thought to be highly absurd
that when I close my eyes all the visible objects around me
should be reduced to nothing; but isnt this what philosophers commonly admit when they all agree that light and
colourswhich are the only immediate objects of sight and
only of sightare mere sensations, and exist only while they
are perceived? Again, some may find it quite incredible that
things should be coming into existence at every moment;
yet this very notion is commonly taught in the schools [= the
Aristotelian philosophy departments]. For the schoolmen, though
they acknowledge the existence of matter, and say that the
whole world is made out of it, nevertheless hold that matter
cannot go on existing without Gods conserving it, which they
understand to be his continually creating it.

45. Fourthly, this will be objected:

It follows from your principles that things are at every
moment annihilated and created anew. The objects
of sense according to you exist only when they are
perceived; so the trees are in the garden and the
chairs in the parlour only as long as there is somebody
there to perceive them. When I shut my eyes all
the furniture in the room is reduced to nothing, and
merely from my opening them it is again created.
In answer to all this, I ask you to look back at 3, 4, etc. and
then ask yourself whether you mean by the actual existence
of an idea anything but its being perceived. For my part, after
the most carefully precise enquiry I could make, I cannot
discover that I mean anything else by those words. I ask you

47. Furthermore, a little thought will show us that even if

we do admit the existence of matter or corporeal substance,
it will still follow from principles that are now generally accepted, that no particular bodies of any kind exist while
they arent perceived. For it is evident from 11 and the
following sections that the matter philosophers stand up
for is an incomprehensible something, having none of those
particular qualities through which the bodies falling under
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our senses are distinguished one from another. To make this

more plain, bear in mind that the infinite divisibility of matter
is now accepted by all, or at least by the most approved
and considerable philosophers, who have demonstrated it
conclusively from principles that are generally accepted.
Now consider the following line of thought, starting from the
premise of the infinite divisibility of matter.
Each particle of matter contains an infinite number
of parts that arent perceived by sense because they
are too small. Why, then, does any particular body
seem to be of a finite magnitude, or exhibit only a
finite number of parts to our senses? Not because it
has only finitely many parts, for it contains an infinite
number of parts. Rather, it is because our senses
arent acute enough to detect any more. Therefore, in
proportion as any of our senses becomes more acute,
it will perceive more parts in the object; that is, the
object will appear larger, and its shape will be different
because parts near its outer edgesones that before
were unperceivablewill appear to give it a boundary
whose lines and angles are very different from those
perceived by the sense before it became sharper. If the
sense in question became infinitely acute, the body
would go through various changes of size and shape,
and would eventually seem infinite. All this would
happen with no alteration in the body, only a sharpening of the sense. Each body, therefore, considered
in itself, is infinitely extended and consequently has
no shape.
From this it follows that even if we grant that the existence
of matter is utterly certain, it is equally certainas the
materialists are forced by their own principles to admitthat
the particular bodies perceived through the senses dont exist
outside the mind, nor does anything like them. According

150

to them, each particle of matter is infinite and shapeless,

and it is the mind that makes all that variety of bodies that
compose the visible world, none of which exists any longer
than it is perceived.
48. When you think about it, the objection brought in 45
turns out not to provide reasonable support for any accusation against my views. I do indeed hold that the things we
perceive are nothing but ideas that cant exist unperceived,
but it doesnt follow that they have no existence except when
they are perceived by us; for there may be some other spirit
that perceives them when we dont. Whenever I say that
bodies have no existence outside the mind, I refer not to
this or that particular mind but to all minds whatsoever. So it
doesnt follow from my principles that bodies are annihilated
and created every moment, or that they dont exist at all
during the intervals between our perception of them.
49. Fifthly, it may be objected that if extension and shape
exist only in the mind, it follows that the mind is extended
and shaped, because extension is a quality or attribute that
is predicated of the subject in which it exists. I answer
that those qualities are in the mind only in that they are
perceived by itthat is, not as qualities or attributes of
it but only as ideas that it has. It no more follows that
the soul or mind is extended because extension exists only
in it than it follows that the mind is red or blue because
(as everyone agrees) those colours exist only in it. As to
what philosophers say of subject and mode [= quality], that
seems very groundless and unintelligible. For instance, in
the proposition A die is hard, extended, and square they hold
that the word die refers to a subject or substance that is
distinct from the hardness, extension, and squareness that
are predicated of ita subject in which those qualities exist.
I cannot make sense of this. To me a die seems to be nothing
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George Berkeley

over and above the things that are called its qualities. And to
say that a die is hard, extended, and square isnt to attribute
those qualities to a subject distinct from and supporting
them, but only to explain the meaning of the word die.

150

really exists.
To this I answer that every single phenomenon that is
explained on that supposition could just as well be explained
without it, as I could easily show by going through them all
one by one. Instead of that, however, I shall do something
that takes less time, namely show that the supposition of
matter cannot explain any phenomenon. To explain the
phenomena is simply to show why upon such and such
occasions we are affected with such and such ideas. But
how matter should operate on a mind, or produce any idea
in it, is something that no philosopher or scientist will claim
to explain. So, obviously, there can be no use for the concept
of matter in natural science. Besides, those who try explain
things do it not by corporeal substance but by shape, motion
and other qualities; these are merely ideas and therefore
cant cause anything, as I have already shown. See 25.

50. Sixthly, you will object like this:

Many things have been explained in terms of matter
and motion. if you take away these you will destroy
the whole corpuscular philosophy [that is, the approach
to physics in which the key concepts are those of matter, motion,
and physical structure],

and undermine those mechanical principles that have been applied with so much
success to explain the phenomena. In short, whatever
advances have been made in the study of nature by
ancient scientists or by modern ones have all built
on the supposition that corporeal substance or matter

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